The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification
Ecclesial Reception of the Divine Life 221 the church that was going to exist in all tongues was being foretold. One individual was the sign of all unity; all tongues in one individual, that meant all nations in that unity."86 The Donatist problem confirmed Augustine's conviction that civic peace and personal integrity can be experienced only in communion: "And so it is those people have absolutely no share in this gift of the Holy Spirit, who hate the grace of peace, who do not hold on to the fellowship of unity."87 Peace and unity are not only analogues in the political sphere but in the psychological sphere as well.
Within the church such reconciliation is brought about primarily through the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist. Through the former, one becomes a child of God, and through Eucharistic communion, one is brought further into enfleshed godliness. As we have just seen, these are the exemplary sacramenta for Augustine but we should here note that this does not suggest that these are the only two sacraments. As Norman Russell has rightly observed, however, the divine life—while analogically understood, experienced only fully in heaven and one that now remains a mystery—is "to be appropriated through baptism and the Eucharist."88 So let us now isolate these two sacraments to show how Augustine understood the unitive effect they have in the life of a Christian.
Augustine's first focused treatment of any of the sacraments was not until after 400 and the appearance of De Baptismo. Of all the sacraments, most attention is paid to the work Christ achieves through the waters of baptism, a precedent set by the other great African fathers. Both Tertullian and Cyprian developed rich theologies of baptism by stressing how the Spiritfilled waters bring about both the unity between God and the
86. s. 266.2; Hill, Sermons (III/7), 267; for more on this type of unity, cf. en. Ps. 142.2, ciu. Dei 15.1, epp. 43, 58, 108. 87. s. 271; Hill, Sermons (III/7), 299. 88. Russell, Deification, 332.